According to the podcast, the tipping industry has changed a lot during the past centuries; in fact, back in the day tipping was done in advance to make the service faster, now we do it after receiving the service for various reasons. Even if the weather has bigger affect on our willingness to tip than the service itself, we do tip. They’re discussing the reasons for this in the podcast as well, but it’s all about the real life. We still don’t know why we drop some money into virtual tipjars.

The best place to ask this is the people who already love the idea of giving money to appreciate others. So over to you: Why do you tip? Why do you use Flattr?

Published by Linus Olsson

7 thoughts on “Feedback: Tipping”

I don’t really use flattr to “tip”, I use it to _pay_. The distinction seems artificial but it’s not for a very simple reason: Tipping is your generosity, you being a nice person wanting to reward someone for their services rendered. Paying means realizing you just got something that provides benefit/enjoyment/etc and then acting upon the moral obligation to give back.

While the tipping metaphor looks cool and all I think it does not send the right message.

I use Flattr, cause I feel a need to support all the great FLOSS projects I use every day, but I can’t afford a larger donation cause I live in eastern Europe. Flattr lets me support those projects and at the same time not ruin my budget.

@tante: The aim of using the tipping metaphor was to show one aspect of Flattr, not to identify it as a tipjar. It’s good that you wrote the first comment, we can see why Flattr is not (only) for ‘tipping’.

I tip to just support this creative persons on Flattr. Well, my donation/tip is very small but it shows that I think: “I like your job, your things, keep going!” I’m also very happy when some of my things is flattered.